This is an extremely addictive character driven romcom, I had an insane amount of fun watching it. Make no mistake though the story is absolute trash, nothing makes sense plot wise, luckily in this genre that's not too important. Despite the terrible plot & setting I was ready to give it 10/10 just for the sheer entertainment value. The reason why I didn't is because I did not like the events that happened in EP25-27 & the ending felt a bit too generic, the fun died down a bit for the last few episodes.

edit: the rewatch value is not nearly as good as I thought. The comedy is not the "it gets me every time" type and there is not much else of value going on here.

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It's pretty normal for dramas to have messy storylines, when they are doing live filming, however according to Wikipedia this drama was fully preproduced. For that reason I do not understand why would they even start filming a story written as poorly as this one. There are lots of things that make no sense in regards to the ML's condition, like his daily routine, if I try REALLY hard to understand, then I could maybe accept how he can wake up every day & instead of being confused he just casually reads his later diary entries & then meets ppl & he acts all comfortable with them. Anyway this entire "I have the memories, I just cannot access them, but instinct... " should have been communicated much better with us viewers early on. Even if the fake science behind his illness is all wrong, I could have been okay with all this really, but for a preproduced drama the pacing is all wrong, they made 3-4 episodes worth of filler content that served very little purpose & then we got a super rushed ending that was like 20 minutes long, but could have been an amazing 2 hours. Also the first episode is noticeably lower quality than the other 15 episodes, I was considering dropping the drama 30 minutes in. There were a lot of drama cliches used, I mean A LOT, the meaningless childhood storyline especially stands out.

So why 7 stars & not 4? Well, the romance was cute. The chemistry could have been better, but it was not bad at all and the leads had some pretty awesome moments together. I wanted to watch some fluffy romance & this show did deliver on that front. The villains were just a decoration, they did not do much to make me annoyed. I expected a lot of makjang, but both of the main villains were dealt with effortlessly & none of their attack plots were long, or very distracting. It's nice that the love square was quickly dismantled early on.
The OST was okay, nothing special though.
I don't know about rewatching it, I probably won't!

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This was a very entertaining romcom. The entire cast was great, Park Seojoon did not disappoint & Hwang Jungeum was especially great, this was my first time seeing her in a drama, but I do remember her from Runningman, she turned out to be a surprisingly skilled actress.
This drama is very similar to Fight for My Way & Secretary Kim, not because of the main male lead, but rather it has a similar vibe overall. Here unlike in the 2 mentioned above there is stronger triangle/square, but luckily compared to other kdramas they didn't overdo the makjang & the second leads gave up before I lost my patience with them.
I loved episodes 13-16, essentially we've gotten like a 4 hours long happy ending, they didn't even overdo product placements, most brand names were taped over.
I'm detracting a point from my rating, because the big misunderstanding took way too long to resolve... Sure the story is a bit of mess at times too, but it's not like we watch this genre for the story, right?

(The foreign actors were terrible as per usual, even the English phone conversations were embarrassing to listen to, but this is the same in all kdramas...)

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This should be watched after 97

Reply 1994 follows a similar formula to 1997. It's focusing on the friendships/family & the triangle evenly. I generally don't like triangles, here without the "who is the husband" flashforwards it wouldn't have been so bad, because the second lead never had any chances & he did not have an excessive amount of screen time either.
What especially annoyed me is how the main leads have broken up at episode 18-19. If I wanted to be generous I could understand, that the writer's intent for them was transitioning from puppy love to mature love via hardship, but the entire thing made little sense to me. Kdrama logic is certainly insane on many occasions, but she had to go to Australia of all places for 2 years, as a computer science graduate..... I understand why this would resonate with Koreans, because this is exactly how 30% of the couples break up, when the guy goes to the army for 2 years, but it was still very frustrating to watch.
The pacing is strange too, the first 16-17 episodes were rather slow & relaxed, even boring at times, then everything went to shit, followed by one episode that quickly wrapped up everything in 30 minutes, as if nothing happened. (then they talked A LOT about Korean football, maybe the product placement quota needed to be filled up?) This could have been a real excellent 16 episodes long drama, had they taken out the unnecessary filler.

Despite all the above Reply 94 was still quite amazing. The nostalgia factor is still there, the cinematography was way ahead of its time, it is a funny and witty show too. The cast was awesome, maybe even better than in 1997. Go Ara's transformation into a country bumpkin amazed me to no end.

(ppl who watch kdramas to advance their Korean language studies shouldn't bother with this, because it's impossible to understand anything :D)

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I finished watching this for the first time today, in 2019. This drama is certainly dated in many ways. The cinematography frankly isn't very good, there are many visually boring frames & the lighting is just terrible, but this was normal for kdramas before 2014, or so ~. The OST is fine, but the same 2-3 songs are overused a lot.
I'm giving this 10/10, because probably this is the best drama that Hallyu produced up until like June 2013. There are of course a lot of cliches & the first 5-6 episodes are a bit boring, but from the first gender bender moment onward this was quite awesome. Typically I REALLY do not like gender bender, I think this is the second time after the anime movie "Your Name" where I had good time watching this genre. All the couples had great chemistry & the comedy was spot on too. The typical plot devices used in dramas to ruin everything for the characters were only very lightly used, which is very unusual for an older drama. I can get on board with the "main complication" that the plot had. The ending was quite long and satisfying, even the amnesia part was quite amusing. Also it was very nice that there were no annoying love triangles, or pentagons here, not really anyway. Luckily the token love interest director-nim did not have much screen time, or success. The cast was pretty good, even the evil ajumma mother was tolerable.
No kdrama fan should miss this, it's probably a huge contributor to the korean wave & it's worlds better than shows like "My Girl 2005" and "Boys Over Flowers".

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I've been putting off watching this for a long time, mainly because of the plot summaries that I've seen. The only reason I've only decided to watch it because I'm a big fan of Gong HyoJin. This is such a nice surprise really. Despite the heavy topic & the melodrama tag this is a very nice heartwarming story. Obviously the romance is outstanding, there are no bullshit plot devices, such as love triangles, there is no second male lead. The procedural part was mostly interesting, sure there were some parts where I felt my intelligence was insulted a bit, but I understand that they wanted to make sure everyone in the audience can understand everything easily. So I guess psychology is interesting, I knew this when I was a kid, but I have not thought about this in a Long time. The cast is truly very good, almost everyone's acting was on point. I liked the OST too, the title track is especially cool. The way how the drama dealt with the ML spiraling out of control was okay too, we knew from episode 2-3 on that this was inevitable, it turned out way better than I have expected.
One negative I guess is Kangwoo's character, there was no casting mistake and I can see the intent behind this character, but I just felt something was wrong with him, it's hard to put into words what exactly. When I get around to watching this again in the future, I will skip the scenes he has been appearing in.
I have recently watched Age of Youth, this drama is obviously completely different, but it also deals with dark/difficult topics, but I greatly appreciate the much more positive outlook on life here, this is how melodramatic content should be delivered, the 10* rating is easily given, if this isn't 10 stars, then I don't know what is.

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This was not at all what I was expecting. I wanted some light comedy to cheer up my week, nope this wasn't it. Right now I'm struggling with the flu as well, so quite honestly this wasn't much fun to watch sans the first few episodes. So 4/10 for enjoyment in my current situation, i'm giving it a 9, because this hard to define genre is not something Hallyu can pull off well, in fact this might be the first (Korean, there are some similar animes out there)dark spice of life drama I've seen that managed to deliver. Sure it has a lot of stuff that I don't like to watch, such as domestic abuse, but overall objectively this drama is very special. The cast is truly outstanding, the OST is nothing much, but it fits just fine.
The ending was okay and I liked how the supernatural element was dealt with, I understand why meany viewers were disappointed with this, but I felt this was just perfect. I'm going to remember this show for a very long time, bittersweet as it was.

Would I watch this again? Probably not.
Am I going to watch season 2? Probably not either, because based on reviews it's even darker & I really don't like actor swaps..

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This was fairly entertaining, it did not feel like time wasted. That said there were some cliche moments & some unnecessary plot developments. The second male lead definitely overstayed his welcome, the actor had the exact same character in I Can Hear Your Voice, but here he had a LOT more screen time.(I hate forced triangles) This feels like the same sub genre of romantic comedy that Secretary Kim & Oh My Venus belong to, but the writing is definitely inferior. For example I was anticipating the moment of Rui returning to work after his identity is known to everyone, but they completely messed up the timing with the "OH noez Bok Nam is dead, let's separate for life" plotline , so the comedy of that anticipated moment was completely destroyed for no conceivable reason what so ever. The ending is a bit of a mess too, it is supposed to be one of those 3 hour long happy endings, where everyone is getting the happiness they deserve, but then the focus has shifted to some side characters that I did not much care about and even for them I was like WHAAAT is happening at times, like how Mari's story ended on a sour note, or how that SooBin cameo has turned out.

I listed many negatives, none the less this is still a great show. There were about 4-5 truly outstanding episodes & they did not drag out the stupid shit too much. I'm also surprised how I did not figure out the obvious meaning of Kobashi, I was embarrassed about my mind being blown in that big reveal scene at end, which was a pretty great way to end the show too.
Kim Byung Chul surprised me, at first I couldn't even recognize him being the same actor that played the main villain in Goblin. Such a great supporting actor! I'm suspecting that the gene that makes certain Koreans look like rock fishes, or blow fishes help them with acting somehow.

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I enjoyed watching this show very much, that said it's not as light as I thought it would be, based on the reviews I've read on this site. In fact I think the melodrama tag is completely justified, yes there were no major tragedies, even so there was a melodramatic vibe throughout the entire drama. (melodramatic music, many ppl being perpetually unhappy etc, cinematography)
Song Hye-kyo was really amazing, maybe this was her best acting performance to date. Usually in kdramas I really hate interactions with foreigners, because both the foreign actors (seriously where do they get those ppl?) & the Korean actors speaking English all embarrass themselves so much, that I find it hard to watch, here however the Cuban scenes were surprisingly good. The foreigners spoke English naturally with a normal-ish Spanish accent & our main characters were also speaking like how I would expect a normal Korean to speak English in real life, it was actually believable. The secretary lady & that fat driver were also awesome!

I could go on and on about the positives, but the other reviewers already mentioned all the important points, so I'll just list what I did not like:
1, The ML looked like a female version of Matt Damon. I'm completely used to effeminate looking male Hallyu stars, but this was on another level. (too heavy on the lipstick YO!)
2, There is an insane amount of twisted logic, like that retarded clause ..
3, I didn't like any of the 3 mothers
4, The end of episode 13 was unnecessary & for me that alone made episodes 14 & 15 meaningless fillers.
5, There is that side character that only has one role, which is to recommend that W drink to his coworkers (and to us obviously).
6, The second ML hasn't had a single scene without having teary eyes, I hated his character even without this but ..
7, The ending could've been longer & more satisfying. (still it was ok)

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I enjoyed watching this show, but now that I'm trying to write a review I'm having difficulties trying to describe why. I guess I liked the main couple's romance, the lack of a second ML and the OST, but honestly WSL is pretty mediocre for the most part. Maybe it's because I ALMOST felt like that the Incheon airport is a magical place..

Anyway there are lots of negatives:
I could go on and on how stupid our ML is for doing the kdrama equivalent of "burning his life" for nonsense reasons, or how certain characters completely change mid way, the lack of pre-production obviously shows. The most interesting characters on the show barely had any screen time, like that pregnant woman at the control tower, or my favorite supporting actor of all time Kim Wonhae only had like 5 scenes where he did practically nothing.
There were so many missed opportunities, like there were those mini crises at the airport, they could have made some really interesting ones, but all of them were boring. The ending was rather underwhelming, it's one of those "50 minutes of melo followed by 4 minutes of chill & 1 minute of actual happy ending" endings, I'm not impressed, I would have felt more satisfied had they all died in a nuclear attack at the airport... Oh I almost forgot that there were gangsters too, what a waste of screen time they were...

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What a year 2018 has been for kdrama, we had What's Wrong With Secretary Kim & 30 but 17 and now The Beauty Inside. TBI doesn't quite match up with the other 2, but it represents the same trend, doing away with tedious love triangles & instead using other tools to generate tension and I do love a good mystery... (even if everything is obvious about it on day2)

I felt that Lee Minky's acting was a bit off in this series, it was nowhere near as good, as it has been in This is my 1st Life. Still very decent ofc, just that he felt off here and there. I really liked the rest of the cast, especially Lee Dahee, she was really awesome here. Na Younghee is an "ajumma" actress I never liked before in any of the dramas I've seen her appearing in, but this time she was a good fit. The OST was fairly pleasant too, but not very memorable.

Now why am I not giving this 10/10? Well there are some issues. Probably this wasn't pre-produced, the way how they dealt with the rival actress's character was super strange, like the writers wanted to use her as a tool to mess everything up, but changed their minds half way. Episode 14, well this was really just a plain bad episode. I realize that they felt that a work labeled as "drama" needs to have drama in it, but oh man this was pretty badly executed in my opinion. For reference, Oh My Venus had an episode with the same writer intent, but it was SOO MUCH better in every way. Let's not even mention the time-skip part.. The assistant writers(interns?) responsible for product placements were definitely not very good, too obvious boys and girls..
There were some missed opportunities too. They could have done so much more with Segye's alter egos. I mean sure I liked it when she turned into a kid spending time with mom, but there could have been so much more. Remember how memorable Goblin's ghost stories were?

So yes, overall I was entertained, will watch it again someday. I hope that in 2019 we will have more dramas like this one.

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This is a procedural drama with some cute romance. This pretty much sums it up, the romance is reasonably okay, but you won't be floored by the main leads' chemistry. Big positive though that there is no love triangle, or forced separations. Shin Se Kyung did well compared to some of her other works, ML? his acting wasn't very convincing.. The comedic skits for the troupe were meaningless, I did not find any of them funny.
The aspect of seeing scents is a bit interesting, but the CGI showing mini leaf etc. symbols floating around is just dumb, it should've been some random shapes & colors, because this is just unacceptable even with drama logic.
The majority of the time is spent on the procedural police stuff and honestly some of it is really boring, some of it is really stupid, the side characters at the station were not that interesting either. One notable example is that moment when our ML shows his genius in rotating a barcode, well newsflash drama writers, it doesn't matter how you rotate or mirror a barcode, the numeric value won't change. Police tends to be really really bad in kdramas in general, but this is a new kind of low.
Park Jinjoo is the best part of the series, I would love to see her in a main role one day..
The killer, well I didn't really care tbh, the actor did a good job, the sub par script wasn't his fault.
The OST was okay, nothing too memorable though.

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The first 6 episodes were really slow, even compared to "A Love so Beautiful". I'm not into watching the ugliness of society (be that Korean, or American) for extended periods of time, I was ready to drop the drama multiple times for that reason, but the entire plastic surgery thing kept me interested just long enough to reach episode 7 and then things turned for the better. I realized that I really started liking the cast & the romance was getting more and more interesting. There was no humor at all in the first half, but there were quite a few funny moments later on too. As usual in a drama like this I expected the worst from the love triangle, but that never happened, that's always a giant plus. I don't really care about bromances, but this one here was not much worse than in Goblin. I also like how it ended. Yes others have commented on how many secondary plotlines are unfinished & how great a second season would be, but I disagree. I'm genuinely afraid of what the plotline in that hypothetical second season could be. I feel that they followed the still ongoing webcomic too closely up until the ending, that's why we had all that melodramatic setup in the beginning that couldn't really lead anywhere in 16 episodes and honestly I'm not that curious about their resolution, feeling that it's better not to know, I'm content that I got the happy ending that I wanted & the topic of plastic surgery & the psychology of plastic surgery were sufficiently explored.
The OST was just there, here I am writing this 8 hours after finishing the series & I don't recall a single song, or track. Not memorable at all.

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It has to be 10/10, because it's really outstanding in many ways. The casting is fantastic. Every single character has a meaningful role & is an integral part of the story. It's nice that the second male lead did not mess up the romance as it happens 99 out of 100 times in a kdrama. Based on her music videos & pictures that I've seen before I really underestimated Suzy. This is the first time I've seen her in a drama & oh man she is so cool, I'm super impressed. Also the actor that played Mr Choi was awesome, just like Strongwoman Do Bong Soon. The OST at first listen seems nothing special, but it fits really well, it just grew on me. In terms of cinematography it's definitely top tier among Kdramas, in this respect WYWS is way ahead of Pinocchio.

There are negatives too. Some of the "fake law" explanations were just too cheesy. There could have been more lighthearted scenes and the ending, which is the last 30 minutes could have been less rushed, should have been an hour long at least. Hong-joo's mom's shenanigans were really unnecessary too.

Personally I liked Pinocchio more, because I found the setting more interesting and it was funnier & the story flow was better & also the dramatic parts resonated with me more, but maybe I only feel this way, because I saw Pinocchio first and the two dramas are extremely similar in many ways. So yes, While You Were Sleeping will definitively not dethrone Goblin as the best drama I have ever seen, not even close, but it's a top tier work, that I will remember for a very long time & will rewatch it, in fact I might enjoy it even more the second time around, because some strongly hinted potential plot twists made me lightly frustrated the whole time...

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